


Katie

by I May Age Regress (shnuffeluv)



Series: Gibbs' Family [41]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Age Play, Angst, Angst and Feels, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Just sayin', Nightmares, Non-Sexual Age Play, Not Angst With a Happy Ending, Right?, Spoilers for S2 Ending, Spoilers for Twilight, guys...seriously. we all know what happens, it's not happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 02:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8038438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shnuffeluv/pseuds/I%20May%20Age%20Regress
Summary: Tony has been having nightmares for days. And for good reason. It's not every day that your best friend up and dies on you. Angsty with no solid resolution in this fic.





	Katie

  _Her scream filled the air as she was already moving and jumping in front of the bullet. "Shooter!" Kate warned._

_The bullet hit Kate square in the chest as Gibbs turned around and shot at the criminal. As soon as the man was down Tony and Gibbs rushed over to her body. "Kate?!" Gibbs asked._

_They unzipped her jacket to see the bullet had lodged into her vest. Tony let out a sigh. "You okay?" he asked._

_"I just got shot at point-blank range, DiNozzo," Kate quipped. "What do you think?"_

_"You're not going to Pilates class tomorrow?" Tony questioned. Something was wrong. Something was off. But he was on high alert, coming off an adrenaline rush. Obviously he thought something was off._ Nothing to worry about.

_"Protection detail's over, Kate," Gibbs told her._

_"You did good," Tony praised._ Something is wrong, DiNozzo! Find out what it is!

Shut up, _he told himself,_ Everything is fine.

_"For once, DiNozzo's right," Gibbs said with a smile._

_Kate laughed. "Wow. I thought I'd die before I heard--"_

_And then there was the sound of a gunshot. Kate stopped talking as she fell to the ground. There was hot, sticky life splattered on Tony's face as he brought out his gun and looked around for the source of the shot. Then he made the mistake of looking down. Kate was lying there, blood pooling on the cement below her head, making her hair sticky, and he distantly thought that she would hate that, it would take her hours to get the last of it gone. But it wouldn't be her problem anymore. Her eyes were staring back at him, her mouth forming something between a smile and a gasp of pain. She was dead._

_Kate was dead._

Tony sat up in his crib, screaming out "Kate!" senselessly. He clawed at his face to get the blood off and put it back in her. Then maybe she'd be better, then maybe she'd be back. Hands prevented him from doing that for more than a few seconds, though. "No!" he protested. "No! The blood! The blood..." he sobbed.

He was picked up out of the crib and could hear Papa shushing him. "No, ssh, kiddo. It was just a dream. It's okay, Tony. It's okay."

"No! No!" Tony screamed. "K-Kate! Katie!"

"Katie's not here," Papa said quietly. "She's not here tonight, kiddo."

Tony sobbed into Papa's shoulder, and when he looked up he could see Timmy sitting ramrod straight in his bunk, trembling as his eyes never left the boy. Tony just cried harder. "I-I wan' Katie," he sobbed.

"I know you do, kiddo. But she's gone. You _know_  she's gone," Papa whispered.

Timmy started to cry in his bunk at that. They all knew Katie was gone. Ari was dead, Katie was too... _That sounds like the start of a poem,_  Tony thought darkly. "Get her back!" Tony ordered Papa.

Papa kissed Tony's forehead. "If I could, I would, kiddo."

"Papa can fix anything!" Tony exclaimed. "So fix this! Fix our family!" his voice cracked as he dissolved into sobs. He knew it was unfair to tell Papa to bring Katie back, but he just wanted his older sister back with them. Even if she wasn't over here all the time, even if she never visited anymore, that would be preferable to this. Her image forever burned into his skull, that shocked expression halfway formed on her face as she lay dead on the cement..."Katie...Katie..." he whimpered over and over again.

"Hey, kiddo, let's move to the living room to let Timmy try and get some sleep, okay?"

"No!" Timmy protested. "Don' leave me..."

Papa sighed. "Or, we could _all_  go the living room, then?"

Tony could feel himself starting to tire out and his eyes starting to droop, but he couldn't fall asleep...he couldn't! That meant that he'd be stuck in that horrible nightmare again!

Papa was moving out of the bedroom and down the stairs, to turn on the lights in the living room. He sighed at what Tony could only assume was the time. "Kiddo, it's 4 in the morning. We're never gonna be able to get up for work tomorrow."

Tony buried his face in Papa's shirt. "S-so'y," he mumbled.

"No, it's okay, kiddo, I couldn't sleep either." Papa rubbed circles on his back. "I think Timmy's the only one who can sleep through the entire night, and that's because he didn't see Kate..."

_Die_. The word hung thick in the air between everyone. For days, not one of them had been able to say it. For days, Tony and Timmy had been coming over after work. And for days Tony had been getting these relentless nightmares.

He would give anything to have Katie back.

Timmy shuffled forward and sat down on the couch, leaving space for Papa to sit down, and he silently did, wrapping an arm around the older boy. Tony was infinitely glad Papa didn't put him down once.

They all sat in silence for several minutes, the only sounds coming from the buzz of electricity in appliances from the kitchen and Tony sucking his thumb. "Boys..." Papa began.

Tony looked up at Papa from where he was sitting, suddenly worried. That tone Papa used was never a good tone. Would he decide that Kate's death was too much and push him and Timmy away, like his father did after Mom died?

"...I know you don't want to talk about what happened. But sooner or later, we're going to have to talk about it. We can't keep going on like this. Tony, you have nightmares every night that end with you screaming. Timmy, you look like you're about to cry whenever someone even says 'Kate'. I know, you're grieving. But part of grieving is learning how to live on," Papa said. "And that's what we have to do now."

Timmy vocalized Tony's thoughts before he could. "No! I don't want to move on, I want Katie back!" the older boy protested.

Papa sighed. "I know, kiddo, but we can't have that," his voice was getting thick, and Tony was worried. Was Papa...actually _crying_? "The Director wants us back at work later this morning. So, since none of us are getting any more sleep, we should do something productive with our time. Why don't we go through Katie's things, and see what we should and shouldn't keep?"

Tony clutched Papa tighter. Papa carded his fingers through Tony's hair. "We don't have to if you two aren't ready, but we do have to do something besides just sit here in the silence."

Timmy moved forward, away from Papa's arms, and Tony looked over at him in horror. "You...you're not gonna really go through Katie's stuff? She'd _kill_  you!"

"She would if she wasn't dead!" Timmy shot back, anger making every muscle in his body taut. "But she is. Why bother hiding that fact? She's not coming back, Tony!"

Tony could feel his eyes starting to sting. "I know! _I_  was there when it happened! You didn't see what I saw!"

"Boys," Papa warned. "Fighting will get you nowhere but in trouble. C'mon. Let's go through Katie's toy chest."

Tony climbed off Papa's lap slowly and sank to the floor, while Timmy got up and brought Katie's toy chest over. The lump in Tony's throat grew as Timmy opened the top, and pulled out Katie's stuffed My Little Pony. "C-can I, I mean...Katie's gone, and we both liked...can I keep her?" Timmy asked, hugging the toy close and sniffing it. "Still smells like her."

Papa nodded. "Tony, you pull something out next."

Tony leaned in and pulled out one of the sets of smaller Legos only Katie and Timmy were allowed to play with unless Tony promised to be bigger than normal. It was one of the sets that they never played with, because it was, to use Katie's words, "about as interesting as dried Play-Doh." "We prob'ly won't play with this one," he said quietly, moving it away to start a pile behind him.

They sorted through the chest slowly and methodically, Tony and Timmy wanting to split up most of the toys between them, for keepsake purposes. When they got down to the bottom however, Timmy burst into tears and Tony buried his head in his hands. For the last item in the toy chest, was Katie's Pooky bear. Papa reached down for it, and Tony and Timmy both went to block him at the same time. "No!" they yelled together.

Papa leaned in and picked it up anyway, turning it over in his hands. "We are keeping this one, even if it means all the others leave, agreed?" he asked.

Tony and Timmy nodded furiously. "We can't give up Pooky," Timmy said.

"Never ever," Tony said firmly, sticking one of his thumbs in his mouth.

Papa hesitated. "But...should we bury him with her? Do you think she would want that?"

Tony looked over at Timmy, and Timmy looked nervously back. "I...I dunno," Timmy said.

"I wanna keep Pooky here," Tony said quietly, taking his thumb out of his mouth. "I know Katie might want him...but I want her, and Pooky's the closest we've got now."

Papa rubbed his fingers over Pooky's left ear. "...I can keep him in my room. And maybe we can spray him with the perfume Kate used once in a while, when we really miss her," he decided. "I don't think Kate would mind all that much."

Tony nodded and felt himself starting to doze off, before waking with a start when he remembered the nightmares from last time. Timmy glanced over at him, worried. Papa was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Papa?" Tony asked.

"He went upstairs to put Pooky in a safe place," Timmy said. "He told you that, and you nodded. Don't you remember?"

"I was 'sleep," Tony mumbled, rubbing his eyes. "Don' wanna sleep, though. I get nightmares. 'Bout Kate."

Timmy scooted across the floor and sat in front of Tony. "I do too," he admitted. "Even if I didn't see it. I'm gonna miss being able to call her at night when I had nightmares."

"I'm gonna miss her calling us pigs," Tony said with a giggle.

"And the way she and Abby would talk about Harry Potter..." Timmy said.

"And that one time we all got in a food fight when Abby and Uncle Ducky were over? That was fun!"

Timmy laughed and swiped at his cheeks when tears started to fall. "I'm gonna write a book about her. To remember. And it's gonna have Kate _and_  Katie. I might never publish it, but it's gonna be my best one ever."

"Can you give me a copy?" Tony asked hopefully.

Timmy nodded. "And maybe you could give it pictures, or we could make copies of pictures Katie did to add into it!"

Tony smiled. That was a great idea! Maybe Katie didn't have to be so gone after all! "And some of Kate's, too, 'cause it wouldn't be fair to just put in Katie's when Kate's were also really good!"

Timmy nodded, and sniffled. "I'm gonna miss her. But maybe we don't have to be sad all the time? Kate'd want us to keep going, and Katie'd want to make sure we were happy."

Tony agreed and yawned again. "'M tired. How much longer 'til work?"

Timmy angled his head so he could see the clock in the kitchen. "Uh...7 minus 5 is...2 hours."

Tony groaned. "But that's only time for a nap! And big boys don't take naps!"

"I won't tell if you don't, but I could use a nap," Timmy said, stifling a yawn.

Tony frowned. "...Okay, I'll take a nap with you, but no telling anyone but Papa, 'cause no one else would get it!"

Timmy nodded and the two moved Katie's toy chest away and lay down on the ground side-by-side. Tony listened to the sound of Timmy's breathing, and thought about the book they were going to make to remember Kate and Katie, and thought that maybe, just maybe...Katie being gone didn't hurt as much any more.

He fell asleep quickly, and for the first time in nights, he didn't have a single nightmare.


End file.
